Some Other Beginning's End
by kenina
Summary: Jim and Karen go out for a beer on Jim's first unarmed day on the job.


**Title: **Some Other Beginning's End

**Disclaimer: **All things Blind Justice belong to Steven Bochco Productions. No copyright infringement intended.

**Rating: **PG

**Spoilers: **Set just after Fancy Footwork.

**Summary: **Karen takes Jim out for a beer after work the first day he's unarmed on the job.

**Author's Note: **This has been sitting on my hard drive for months, just waiting to be finished. Finally got a bit of inspiration, so here it is. FYI I took the title from Green Day's "Closing Time." Enjoy!

* * *

"What're you having, Dunbar?" Karen asked her partner as they sat down at the bar.

Jim, who was busy getting Hank settled at his feet and out of the main walkway, took a moment to answer. "As long as it's cold and wet, I won't complain," he told her.

Karen's laugh was knowing. "Right," she said, signaling to the bartender. "Whatever's on tap," she told him when he came down the bar toward them.

"Domestic or imported?" the young man asked.

"Jim?" Karen asked.

"Imported is good," he said, lifting his head toward the bartender. "Thanks." Jim heard the clinking of glasses as the bartender prepared their drinks, and he reached automatically for his wallet.

"First one's on me," Karen said, putting a restraining hand on his arm.

Jim exhaled sharply. "Hey, I should be buying _your_ drink, not the other way around," he said.

"Nah, I asked you, so I buy the first round. Then we'll talk," Karen said, and Jim knew she was smiling—he'd learned to recognize that almost imperceptible change in her tone of voice that only occurred when the corners of her mouth turned up. People didn't realize how "visible" their emotions were in their voices, but Jim knew it well.

"Sounds good," Jim agreed, returning her smile. He heard two thunks as the bartender set their drinks on the bar, and he slid his hand across the surface to find his.

"So…" Karen began. "You okay? With…everything?"

Jim paused, taking a drink then sighing a little and lifting his shoulders in a prolonged neck roll. He'd figured this was why Karen wanted to go for a beer, but he still wasn't sure he wanted to talk about it. Earlier that day, he'd signed a form officially relinquishing his right to carry a weapon. The significance of that action had dwarfed the time it took to do it—just a couple of minutes in the privacy of Lieutenant Fisk's office, first thing that morning. And he was no longer an armed detective. Just like that.

"I'm okay," he said finally. "What about you? You sure you don't wanna rethink this arrangement?"

Surprise—and a little hurt—colored Karen's voice as she answered indignantly, "Jim…no. Why? Do you think I should?"

Jim shrugged. "I just…you know, I'm just worried—if something happens out there, I won't be able to do anything about it."

"Hey, you don't need to worry about me—I can take care of myself. And anyway, nothing's gonna happen that we can't handle, and if it does, we call for backup, just like everyone else," Karen told him matter-of-factly.

"I…I appreciate you backing me in this," Jim said. "I'm still hoping it's the right thing to do."

Karen sighed. "Well, look, I told you the other day, you've already proved to me you have a right to carry as much as the next cop. And your weapon getting stolen coulda happened to anyone. But…seems like you've made up your mind here, and I guess I'd rather work with a gunless Dunbar than no Dunbar."

She was smiling again, Jim could tell, and he was so flattered by her comment that it was easy for him to respond in kind. His hand was halfway raised to loosen his tie when he realized he'd already removed it and stuck it in the laptop carrying case that was stuck between his and Karen's stools. He lowered his hand back to the bar, found his beer, and took a long swallow. He was about to thank her again when he heard her emit a rather indelicate snort of laughter. Confused, he tilted his head a little and asked, "What?"

"Nothing," she said, a little too quickly, and Jim heard her take a gulp of beer.

"Ah, come on," Jim replied. "Partners share everything, right?"

"You wish," Karen scoffed, but Jim heard the smile in her voice as she said it. "No, I was just…it's silly. I was thinking that if someone woulda told me four months ago that I'd be so…that I'd be _glad_ you were my partner, I'd've said they were crazy."

Jim chuckled. "Yeah. Seems like it wasn't too long ago you were telling me you were gonna talk to the Lieutenant about us being partners," he reminded her, gesturing between himself and Karen to illustrate the memory.

"Yeah." Karen sounded almost sheepish, and Jim instantly felt bad—he hadn't meant it as a dig. Just a humorous glimpse into the rocky beginning of their friendship. And he told her so.

"I know," she said. "But you wanna know the truth, we were even less, uh, _enthusiastic_ about you joining the squad than we let on."

"Really? You musta wanted to throw me out a window."

"Not quite. Well, _I _didn't, anyway. Can't speak for Marty." They both laughed.

"So tell me about it," Jim said after a moment. He rubbed his fingers absentmindedly through the condensation on the outside of his glass as he waited for her to answer.

Which she didn't, for a long few seconds. "About what?" Her words were colored with confusion.

"About the day Fisk told you I was assigned there."

Karen uttered a short, nervous laugh. "It was all a blur."

"Come on—you can do better than that," he insisted, his tone good-natured but firm.

"You sure you wanna hear about it?" she asked. "It's water under the bridge, you know?"

"That's _why_ I wanna hear about it now," Jim replied, shrugging. "You got somewhere to be?"

"With my social life?" Karen joked. "Not likely." She paused, then said, "Okay. Here goes nothing…"

* * *

_(Four-and-a-half months earlier)_

The thing Karen remembered most about that day was the _cold_. The heating at the precinct headquarters wasn't working, and they were all sitting around with their coats on over their suits, shivering and constantly sipping hot coffee to try to stay warm and focused on the task at hand. They were making zero progress on the tongue collector case, even though other cases were falling by the wayside while they directed all their energy to the highest-profile investigation any of them had ever worked.

"Hey, you see the Knicks last night?" Karen heard Tom ask Marty, and she lifted her head, grateful for any distraction, even one that involved discussing professional basketball.

"Nah—took Alex ice skating," Marty said. "Well, she skated with her friends and I drank coffee and watched."

"You gotta get a girlfriend, man," Tom kidded him.

"Oh, please. His daughter comes first—I respect that," Karen interjected.

Both men rolled their eyes, but Marty shot her a grateful smile. "Did they win?" he asked Tom, going back to his partner's original question.

"You kiddin? The Lakers stomped all over them, as usual."

Marty nodded. "Yeah, it's been a bad year."

"Well, it's about to get worse," Fisk said, walking up on the tail end of the conversation and perching on the edge of Tom's desk. "Just got a call from 1 PP."

The three detectives exchanged wary glances. A call from the top brass was rarely a good thing. "What's up, boss?" Karen asked.

"I'm sure you've all been following the news about Jim Dunbar," Fisk began, and they could all hear the slight edge of disdain in their lieutenant's voice as he mentioned the detective's name. They all nodded and murmured assent, and he continued. "Well, they just reached a settlement with him, and the short version is, he's coming back on the job."

Marty let out a huff of indignation. "I saw that one coming. I mean, it's all about politics in this city, right? Nobody up there making the decisions knows how things are down here where we are."

"Marty, please," Fisk interrupted. "For better or worse, the deal is done, as they say. And...they've assigned him to the 8th precinct. To me."

Marty's mouth fell open, and Tom and Karen just stared at their leader in shock, processing the news.

* * *

Jim let out a laugh that was unencumbered with the defensiveness and self-consciousness that he might have felt if he'd heard this story when he was first feeling his way—no pun intended—around the new squad. He took another sip of his beer and smacked his lips. "Did Marty threaten to quit?" he guessed, figuring he probably wasn't too far off the mark.

"Nope—he just wanted you to."

Jim laughed. "Yeah, tell me something I don't know."

* * *

"You have gotta be kidding me!"

Marty's disbelieving tone spoke for all three detectives as they tried to grasp what their boss had just told them. "So, but...he's gonna stay at his desk...right? I mean, I've heard him in the news saying he wanted to go back out in the field. But that's just..."

"And I heard that he wanted to keep his gun," Tom put in, shaking his head slowly. "But they can't let him do that, either...can they, Boss?"

"Listen, I'm not sure I like this any more than you do," Fisk began, sighing. "But I take orders from someone, too, and when we get an order, we obey. Dunbar is being allowed to carry his gun, and he wants to go back out in the field. Now, I'm going to talk to him when he gets here, and maybe...I don't know, try to change his mind."

"But if it's part of the agreement, you can't stop him...right, Boss?"

That was Karen's first contribution to the conversation since Fisk had joined them, and they all turned to look at her. She tucked a lock of hair self-consciously behind one ear. "What? I'm just saying, if the brass is letting him come back, and carry, and go out in the field, that's how it's going to be."

"Well, the _brass _doesn't hafta _work_ with the guy, Karen. The _brass _isn't going out there partnered up with someone who can't see their back." Marty's features were distorted by an angry, incredulous grimace—one eyebrow raised, the other scrunched down—the same way he looked when he was listening to the story of a suspect he knew damn well was guilty.

"Hey, hey, that's enough, Marty," Fisk said, standing. He spread his hands, palms outward in a placating gesture. "Look, we're all going to have to deal with this one way or another. And I trust all of you to be on your best behavior—" Fisk trained a skeptical eye on Marty— "when Dunbar gets here. Like it or not, he's going to be a part of this team."

"Who're you gonna partner him with, Boss?" Tom asked.

Fisk sighed again, this time in resignation. "I don't know," he answered. His glance flitted momentarily toward Karen, then back to Tom. "He'll be here Monday," he added, sounding distracted. He turned back toward his office, then swung around again and held up a finger. "Oh—one more thing. You might have to deal with the press on this. Repeat after me: 'No comment.'"

* * *

"Did you?" Jim asked. He lifted his glass again, only to discover that it was empty. He could hear the bartender down at the other end of the bar, so he just pushed his glass to the inside rim of the bar in a subtle gesture he hoped the man would see when he made his way back down to them.

"What?" Karen asked, sounding confused.

"Deal with the press."

"Oh, uh, they were outside the station house that afternoon, and I just followed the Boss' script," she replied. "Didn't you see us on the news?"

"No," Jim replied, in a tone that implied the answer should have been obvious. "I didn't follow any of the press coverage. Didn't want any to begin with."

"Seems like it helped your cause, though," Karen suggested hesitantly.

Jim shrugged. "I think it went both ways. I guess some people saw it as a disability rights issue, or whatever—but I got a lot of mail from other people who thought I was crazy or stupid or both."

"You got _mail_? Like, _hate_ mail?"

Karen sounded completely taken aback, and Jim just smiled as he nodded. "I made Christie read all of it at first, but it was like a broken record after a while. But I got a lot of support, too. It all evened out, I guess."

"I never thought about people writing to you. That must've been...I don't know, weird."

"No weirder than anything else I went through last year," Jim answered honestly. He thought again about his empty beer glass, and listened again for the bartender. "Hey, you need another beer?"

Karen laughed. "No, I'm good, but I guess _you_ do." A moment later, the bartender was in front of them, asking, "Yeah?"

Jim asked for a refill, then thanked Karen for summoning him. "You know, eye contact is highly underrated," he told her, causing her to giggle again.

"So..." she began a moment later.

"So..." Jim repeated. "What happened after that?"

"Jimmy..." Her soft plea ended on a whine, and it was clear she'd thought she was off the hook. "Nothing happened. We went back to work on the tongue collector case."

"You never talked about it after that? I find that hard to believe."

Karen sighed. "Of course we talked about it. We'd've talked about anybody else, too."

"Come on, Karen. You know it was different because it was me."

Karen stifled a laugh. "Yeah. It was different. Okay, listen up, cause I'm only gonna say this once..."

* * *

"He's gonna partner Dunbar with me." Karen reached for another handful of peanuts from the small wooden bowl in the center of the table she was sharing with Marty and Tom. They'd hunkered down together after work in a neighborhood bar, a smoky, cop-filled place where they felt most comfortable. And they certainly needed some comfort that night.

"What makes you say that?" Marty asked, taking a swig of his beer and following Karen's hand into the peanut bowl.

She chewed for a moment, then rolled her eyes. "I'm the new kid on the block, and you guys were partnered before I got there. It's not rocket science, Marty."

"She's right," Tom echoed. Although his eyes kept flitting to the basketball game displayed on the large screen TV behind Marty's head, it was clear to his colleagues that his mind wasn't on sports. "Fisk is a good guy, but he's not one to shake things up too much."

"I can't believe we're talking about this," Marty said. "Sending you out with a blind guy is just asking for trouble."

"Sending _anyone_ out—is that what you meant?" Karen asked, glaring at him pointedly. "'Cause I can take care of myself just as well as you can."

"I know that, Karen. I just meant...you're a good detective, but you're young. You should be partnered up with someone who can show you the ropes. Not someone who can't _see_ the ropes."

"I don't know," Karen objected. "I've heard he was a good detective. And he sure took one for the team at that bank robbery."

"_Was_," Tom repeated, emphasizing the word derisively.

Karen shrugged. "How many times have _you_ drawn your weapon since you got out of uniform? I mean, the guy can still do interviews, right? That's 80 percent of the job, and the other 20 is writing up the interviews."

"So now you're on board with Dunbar—is that it?" Marty asked angrily.

"I'm just playing devil's advocate. I don't wanna work with the guy—and it's not even 'cause he's blind. Okay, partly that, but also..." Karen looked away uneasily. "The guy's an asshole."

Tom jerked his gaze back from the TV screen, suddenly interested in the conversation again. "You met him?"

Karen shook her head. "Friend of mine had a run-in with him."

* * *

"Anne," Jim said softly. He held his breath for a moment, not wanting to ask the question that sprang immediately to his lips, but dying to know the answer. "Did you tell them?"

"No," Karen replied. "Not to protect you—to protect her."

Jim nodded. "Right. I appreciate that."

Karen was quiet, and Jim imagined that she shrugged. Now that the topic had been broached, he pushed a little further. "I want to...explain about that. You never asked me to, but..."

"Listen, Jim...I don't need to know. You told me you'd changed, and...and I think you have. Let's just let that be enough, okay?"

Jim marveled at what a good friend she was, but he was torn between letting it drop and wanting her to know more. He'd always been afraid that she would never trust him completely, knowing he was capable of that level of deception. That his moral fiber was so flawed he'd cheat on his wife. _He_ knew he'd never do it again, but she had no way of knowing that. No way of understanding just how much he'd changed. He wanted to explain it to her, to make it right somehow. If he couldn't do it with Anne, he could at least do it by proxy, using Karen. But if he was painfully honest with himself, Jim knew it would just be to assuage his own guilt.

"Thank you, Karen," he replied solemnly, then continued in a more upbeat tone, "You ready for a refill now? I'm buying."

"Yeah, okay," she replied with a smile, and the moment of tension between them was over. "We done with the show-and-tell for tonight?"

Jim nodded. "Yeah, we are. Unless you have something you want to ask _me_. Fair's fair, right?"

Karen didn't speak for several long seconds, and Jim wondered what was going through her mind and across her face. "Maybe some other time," she said finally.

As he took a sip of his beer, Jim thought back over the conversations Karen had just shared with him. He probably hadn't been ready to hear them until today, but now he felt he'd come full circle. He never dreamed when he'd started back to work that he would voluntarily give up his right to carry a weapon. But today he had, and Karen's support had been a huge factor in that decision. Jim was grateful to her on so many levels, and thought so highly of her as both a friend and a partner. Though he hadn't said that in so many words, he hoped it was evident to her.

His reverie was broken as he heard the bartender come back down toward them, and after Karen's pint glass was refilled, Jim lifted his into the air toward her until she clinked her glass against his. "What are we toasting?" she asked.

"To the beginning of a beautiful partnership."


End file.
